


Confessions

by Chubbidust



Category: Splatoon
Genre: M/M, Suicide Attempt, agent 8 marina and marie are only mentioned, also the suicide attempt isn't like a full on suicide attempt, but agent 8 has a bigger role which is why his character's in the main tags, callie might be ooc but i really tried to get her right, just REAAAAALLY close to one, like straight up Just About To Do It but Not Quite, she's capable of being serious she just doesn't do it often
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-10
Updated: 2020-05-10
Packaged: 2021-03-02 23:20:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,542
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24105055
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Chubbidust/pseuds/Chubbidust
Summary: When Agent 3 gets confessed to by Agent 8, he reacts in a way nobody expected. Callie goes to talk him down.
Relationships: Agent 3 & Agent 8 (Splatoon), Agent 3 & Callie (Splatoon), Agent 3/Agent 8 (Splatoon)
Comments: 5
Kudos: 53





	Confessions

**Author's Note:**

> Trigger Warning for Suicide Attempt! Thanks for your interest in my story.

It hadn’t taken long for Callie to find the missing agent, the teal colored inkling standing upon the edge of one of the skateboard ramps in Octo Valley rather than the Canyon.

Agent 8 had sent Marina an urgent text regarding Agent 3’s behavior, who in turn sent a text to Marie, who had an important talk show that night, who then sent a text to Callie herself. It wasn’t a very long nor detailed text since the green squid sister was in a rush, but it gave Callie enough information for what was going on.

“Check up on 3 would u? Rina told me 8 said he was acting weird. Might be in the valley.”

And that was exactly where he was, right at sunset. It took Callie a moment to recognize the young inkling without his equipment on and in the waning sun, the agent instead wearing a casual dark t-shirt and grey shorts with leggings underneath. He was lounging against the rather redundant orange gate that covered only a portion of the ledge, staring off at the octopus shaped rock formation way into the distance.

Callie frowned at the sight, gathering a solemn vibe from the body language Three was expressing. It was...sad. Thinking? Pondering? Contemplating? What was he contemplating about?

Pushing her sunglasses to her forehead, Callie adjusted the pink jacket that was a part of her casual outfit and began walking her way up to Three. She made no attempt to sneak up to the younger agent, yet found herself jumping at the sight of Three whirling around in alarm, as if he was caught in the act of stealing cookies in the kitchen.

“Hey, Three!” She cheered despite the tension, eagerly waving an arm in greeting as she strolled up closer to the ramp. Actually getting up to the ledge was a steep and slippery climb without a skateboard or a weapon to ink it with, but she was Agent 1 of the Squidbeak Splatoon and that wouldn’t stop her!

From the corner of her eye she could see Three give a half-hearted wave back as she quickly scaled the ramp, only managing to gain a small scratch on her knee from a minor slip-up. As she threw herself up onto the edge of the ramp, she playfully stuck out her arms into jazz hands, proud of herself for managing to climb up so fast.

Three didn’t seem to notice, however, having gone back to blankly staring off at the octopus formation in the distance. He looked even more upset up close, which caused Callie to subconsciously frown and tilt her head. Sure, the kid was kinda edgy and aloof, never speaking much whenever he and everyone else was in a meeting, but he wasn’t...sad. Something must’ve happened.

Slowly stepping closer to the young teen, Callie found herself staring off at the octopus with him, catching the amazing sight of the waterfalls glistening in the sunset. Never had she wanted more than to eat a bunch of rocks and water, as funny as that sounds. They looked so pretty, how could she not want to consume them?

“Did’ya come to watch the view? It’s pretty amazing, so I get it!” The words flew out of her mouth before she knew it, piercing the silence between the two. 

Three didn’t reply, though he sent a half-assed smile her way. Callie wasn’t dumb, she knew he could do better than that. What was egging at him? She often didn’t know what to say to someone going through bad times -that was her cousin’s department-, but she knew she had to do something.

“Sooooooo….” She started rather awkwardly, rocking back and forth on her heels, “What’s eating at ‘cha?”

There was a hefty pause between dialogue before Agent 3 responded, the boy tapping a finger against the fence as he stared off nowhere.

“Nothin’.” He murmured under his breath, barely audible enough for Callie to hear.

“Liar.” She shot back, jabbing him in the side with an elbow. She felt a smirk coming on when the other agent forced out a garbled squawk in surprise.

“Marie sent me a text about you, y’know. She said Eight was worried about you and stuff.”

There was a small, tense silence as Three stared a hole in the ground.

“Okay.”

Well, that wasn’t the reaction she wanted. Where was the concern? The immediate “oh, shit! I gotta go back!” in his face? This wasn’t very much like Three at all, especially considering she and everyone else knew of his affinity for Eight, as much as he liked to deny it.

“Soooo…” She started again, “Are you gonna run back to your boyfriend?”

Normally, the mention of the word ‘boyfriend’ alone was enough to send Three into a stuttering, flustered mess that would profusely deny any sort of relation to the word, so when he instead shrunk back and lowered his head as if he’d been hit, that sounded a couple alarms in Callie’s head.

“Oh...Did you guys get into a fight?” It may have been nosy of her to ask that question, but Callie was a naturally curious gal and it was _absolutely_ necessary to help Three feel better.

Thankfully, Three didn’t seem to show offense over it, dully shaking his head as a non-verbal answer. Callie pretended not to notice his hands’ tight grip on the fence.

They both stood at the edge for a couple minutes, Callie unsure how to keep the conversation going with how one-sided it was. Three was the king of one-sided conversations, but this was the one instance where she _really_ wanted him to be the king of ‘talking about your feelings’ instead.

She had noticed recently how ‘off’ Three had been, though she didn’t think too much of it at the time. He was already practically mute normally, but the agent had become almost dead silent in recent weeks, maybe even a month or two. Conversations with him would die rather quickly due to how curt his answers would be, and it led to a wave of confusion among his fellow agents for what the cause could be. Did one of them have bad breath? Was he going through a phase? Was he getting enough sleep?

“Well...Eight’s worried about you, and it’s getting dark. You should go home.” She eventually sighed, placing her hands on her hips as she began slipping into ‘mom friend’ mode. Yeah, she was the carefree and peppy squid sister that was slightly accident-prone, but if her friends weren’t feeling good or weren’t eating enough, she was on their backs in an instant with romcoms and fluffy pancakes.

She watched as Three slowly tilted his head down, staring off into the very dark abyss below the floating platforms. His grip on the fence grew tighter, arms shaking ever so subtly as he visibly swallowed.

“Three?” She called out, suddenly feeling something very wrong with the situation. A chill flew up her imaginary spine. Was he…?

He didn’t respond...and she very much did not like that.

Before the young agent could do anything drastic, she felt her feet move without warning and her hand snatching onto Three’s arm, yanking him down from the edge of the ramp as she jumped down to safety. The younger agent didn’t land as gracefully as she did, stumbling over himself due to the sudden fall.

Callie didn’t look back at him until she dragged him as far away from the edge of the platform as possible, staring at him with wide and concerned eyes. He refused to meet her gaze, choosing to lay his eyes on one of the many faded stickers he had placed on a cleared kettle years ago.

“Three? Hey- Three. Look at me.” She whined, grasping the boys shoulders so tightly he winced as she struggled to look into his eyes, “What just happened? What were you doing?”

He stuttered over his words for a brief moment, voice thick and choked up, before he fell silent and started desperately shoving her arms off his shoulders.

That was a no-go in Callie’s eyes. Though Three was athletic and was very strong and capable for his age, Callie was an avid roller user. Her strength easily overpowered his by several miles, and it didn’t take long for him to realize that resisting wasn’t gonna work out. His attempt at escaping ended as soon as it began, the agent’s arms falling limp as his shoulders sagged.

“Three…?” Callie’s voice fell to a careful whisper, her hands gently moving from his shoulders to his face, tenderly cupping his cheeks as she watched him closely, as if he’d suddenly vanish right in front of her.

Callie was alarmed when she watched as tears slowly glided down Three’s flushed cheeks, the teen sniffling and squeezing his eyes shut in embarrassment. He quickly shook his head and started scrubbing at his face with his forearm, but once the waterworks started it was near impossible to stop.

“Hey...It’s okay, Three.” She tried to reassure, stepping closer and using one hand to gently rub the agent’s back. How was she supposed to respond to this? Agent 3 never outright cried in front of them before, the most he did was say he had a bad day in a random conversation. She didn’t know how to go about cheering him up, nor what she should avoid doing to set him off further.

“It’s not…” He mumbled with his hands covering his face, voice quiet and interrupted by the occasional hiccup, “It’s not it’s not it’s not.”

Callie paused, delicately choosing her response, “...What do you mean…?”

Three thickly swallowed and removed his hands from his face to wipe at his cheeks. He stared hard at the ground for a moment, thinking hard about something. He opened and closed his mouth a few times as he struggled to verbalize it, lips trembling as his tears fell from his chin and dampened the concrete ground.

“Eight said he liked me.”

It didn’t just stop there, the words spilling out of Three’s mouth like it was an endless waterfall behind a crumbling dam.

“H-He said he liked me but I don’t _deserve it._ I’m fucking Agent 3 of the Squidbeak Splatoon, I _murdered_ so many goddamn octolin-” He choked on a sob as he clenched his fists, “I _killed_ so many of them, Callie! _How could he love me for that?_ ”

“Hey Hey Hey!” She hastily intervened, wrapping her arms around Three’s shoulders and pulling him close in a tight embrace, “You don’t know that they’re gone, okay? They could be just fine, too.”

 _“I’M STEALING THEIR ELECTRICITY!”_ He screamed at the top of his lungs, fighting tearfully against Callie’s hold, “They don’t have as m-many functioning spawn points as us! Not all of them could’ve...ca-came back! I’m killing innocent people!”

Any arguments died in Callie’s throat as she heard the young agent start sobbing in her arms, a sound so foreign and unsettling to her ears. Agent 3 never stated any concerns like this in the years she and Marie knew him, so what changed? Was he bottling it up this whole time? Why didn’t he say anything?

She couldn’t keep a tear or two from escaping as she tightly clutched onto Three, rubbing his back as she gently coaxed him into sitting down. The poor inkling had given up fighting against her and just sat limp in her arms, wailing as all his troubles came pouring down his cheeks. He could hardly get a breath in between sobs, his throat already beginning to sound hoarse from just how hard he was crying.

“Three…” She began, but her voice quieted as she struggled to come up with something comforting to say. What _could_ you even say to a young inkling crying over the countless slain octarians he had splatted with his own hands? Especially after learning that they were people trapped under mind control, forced to do the bidding of their leader. He was essentially a one man army child soldier, fighting their government’s war for them since all they do is ignore it.

Winding down after several minutes of crying, Three began to attempt to speak, voice scratchy and near silent, “Wh-...When I first got a crush on...on Eight I-” He sniffled, “I was so _ashamed_ of it. I couldn’t believe I was falling in love with the same thing I’d been murdering for years. I felt like a sicko that toys with his victims. Like I’d eventually hurt him too.”

Though it didn’t seem that Three himself noticed, Callie could feel the boy’s hands grasp onto the back of her jacket as he mumbled. She felt herself give a small smile, and idly rubbed his back as she let him talk.

“Every time from then on, whenever I fought an octoling, I’d see his face instead of theirs. And if not his face- it could be a fabrication of his mom’s. His sister’s. His cousin’s. I-” He forced himself out of the hug and Callie chose not to fight him this time. He looked thoroughly exhausted, tear tracks glistening in the moonlight and bags under his eyes. Unlike before, his gaze matched Callie’s as he spoke, though his apprehension didn’t go unnoticed- fingers anxiously twiddling in his lap.

“I don’t like fighting octolings. It’s not fun anymore. It was never fun but it’s-” His breath hitched as he got worked up all over again, though he chose this time to keep his hands in his lap instead of scrubbing away the tears.

Callie took this opportunity to talk, “Three, I’m so sorry for what you’ve been through. I-” she stuttered over her words, unsure of what to say, “Marie and I and Gramps and...We...We had no idea how complicated the situation was until now. We learned it with you. _All_ of us thought that the octarians were no good zapfish snatchers and nothing more. We couldn’t have known they were being forced to do it, dying for something they didn’t believe in.”

She grasped at Three’s cold, wet hands and stared into his eyes, knowing and understanding just how damaged the young inkling was from all of this.

“You are _not_ the murderer, here. You’re a victim. The octarians are victims, too. _Please_ don’t blame yourself for how everything is, it’s not your fault, okay? Promise me.”

Three stared down at their hands with a frown, then slowly nodded his head with a slight shrug of his shoulders.

With a soft smile, Callie rose to her feet and helped Three up as well. They stood still in front of each other for a moment until she pulled him back into another hug, letting his head fall onto her shoulder.

“Also-We love you, Three. I love you, Marie loves you...Gramps, Eight, Four...You’re gonna be okay. Take a big ol’ break from agent stuff if you need it, okay? The rest of us can handle it. You should go and be an epic go-getter kid again that kisses his boyfriend.”

She felt him chuckle lightly against her shoulder, and knew that this was only the beginning towards Three’s journey through healing.

**Author's Note:**

> I hope you enjoyed! Please state what you thought and how you felt in the comments! I'd really appreciate it!!


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